Current Challenges  +   Contemporary Thinking   =   Enhanced Team Performance

Sunarcher is a private service consultancy led by Dr. Jamie Dinkelacker. We focus on elevating the performance of software development teams by helping workgroups and their managers better understand the realm of agile software development, the power of focusing on delivered value, and the economic value of adaptive processes over dreamed-up schedules. The end result: everyone works better together -- more efficiently, more effectively, and with higher morale. It's simple, effective, and long-lasting. As a result, people make better use of all their capabilities, higher quality software is delivered, and death march projects become a thing of the past.

Most groups can benefit greatly by adopting several simple, easy, modern approaches for managing software projects, although these are a significant departure from the familiar, although failure-prone, approaches of such high-ceremony methods of waterfall development, end-state integration, or testing reserved for final acceptance. Agility pays off quickly in terms of improved personal productivty and better team performance. Time is better spent, work gets done faster, product is of higher quality, and frustration is diminished.

With agile methods and their related information tools such a burn-down charts instead of Gantt charts, people collaborate better together and manage information assets more effectively. The Agile Advisory shows people where to begin and how to proceed. Following one of these workshops, developers and managers are broadly familar with the realm of agile methods, whether such approaches as Scrum, or extreme programming, or feature-driven development, etc., are reasonably suited for the project at hand, how to begin adopting agile methods into their work processes, the types of knowledge gaps that need to be filled, and where to go to learn more.

Jamie Dinkelacker, Ph.D. is Sunarcher's principal consultant. He has decades of experience working with technology-based distributed teams. He's held managerial positions with companies ranging from venture funded startups such as Netscape to global Fortune corporations like HP and Apple. The Sunarcher team is a small network of highly proficient professionals who join together for projects as appropriate.

The Sunarcher Agile Engagement

Activities

> An extended conversation with the manager and senior staff to discuss augmenting their teams' performance
> A series of conversations with select personnel about their software practices and current everyday ways of working

Work Product

> A written analysis of current working procedures and specific items yielding quickest enhancement
> A managerial presentation detailing several explicit agile practices that would quickly benefit the developers, and an open discussion regarding effective implementation, measures to watch, and tips for implementation
> A written list of leadership speaking points, rationales, and examples
> A skills-based workshop with specific examples tailored to each teams' activities, and a written set of guidelines describing several (rarely more than 5) agile practices by which they'll enhance their personal productivity and their overall team performance

Details

> Duration: A typical engagement runs one to two weeks
> Fees: Typically range from $3,500 to $5,000
> Location: The Sunarcher Performance Advisory serves Silicon Valley, Monterey Bay, and the Greater San Fransciso Bay area

Start Now! Practice Being "Better Together"

If you're a manager and would like a personal conversation with Jamie Dinkelacker, please call 650-941-2648 in Los Altos. We'll arrange a time to talk about your work groups, teams, software development methods, and ways your organization's overall performance can be improved.